Glacier – Part 1

August 5^th

As I said, we woke up at 4 am, knowing that we had a very long drive ahead of us. Everything seems like it will be close together when you are picturing the west from the couch in North Carolina, because Wyoming and Montana are literally right next to each other, how long could it possibly take? 8 hours and 10 minutes, 449 miles, without traffic or stops. Unfortunately we were not so lucky as to go without traffic or stops. We took our usual bathroom and gas breaks with tentative plans to just snack for lunch along the road or grab fast food to refill our dwindling condiment packet supply. We also planned to stop outside in Missoula for groceries and an REI stop which we knew would probably take a little bit of time. We did take one very long extra stop.

I was driving the car and had started to hear a flapping sound but didn’t think much of it as I assumed the straps on the bikes rigged to the top of the camper just got a little free. Also not an insignificant amount of crosswinds were hitting us as we were driving through Central Montana which complicated telling if there was anything funky going on. Until the flapping grew louder so Greg started to notice it, and being cautious he told me to pull over, which I promptly did. Slowing down, the whole car and trailer started shaking. We got the car to stop and started looking around. We started checking straps on the bikes, with nothing overtly amiss.  Then we started looking at tires on the camper, went to go check tire pressures. The passenger’s side tire looked fine, and I watched Greg check so I could check the driver’s side, the pressure was reading variably so I assumed I was just doing it wrong. Greg went to double check when he noted that there were no lug nuts or lugs on the tire. For those of you who know as much as I do about lugs, these are large screw things that hold your tire onto your axle, the lug nuts are the things on the ends that hold the lugs in place, the things you have to loosen to change the tire. There are supposed to be five, we had zero, meaning nothing was holding the tire on to the pop up. If we had kept driving even just a little bit longer or if luck had flown a different direction the tire may have exploded or flown off the axle and taken half of the pop up siding with it; our pop up would have been totaled. We got very lucky.

We counted our blessings that this happened in the 25% of Montana that we actually got phone signal. I vaguely remembered my insurance policy on the pop-up covering towing and such so we called our insurance company. Unfortunately that was on our previous policy, not the one we changed to after we got married. But hey parents how adult am I for having insurance on the pop up? So we called Nationwide to get a tow, they said we would have to pay out of pocket and maybe could submit for reimbursement, we were like cool let’s get that tow set up and take it to a tire shop. They said great, the company will call when they are five minutes out. So we tried to relax and were reading our books and snacking and waiting. We waited about an hour and a half and still hadn’t heard anything so we called back, found out that the request didn’t go through, no tow truck was coming. Then we lost the call. Since at this point I really needed to pee we drove up to the next exit to find a store with a bathroom while we were on hold with Nationwide. After 30 minutes of holding and finally getting back to the car we found out there are no flatbed tow trucks in central Montana, zero. At this point Greg had already decided to take things into his own hands and figure out how to get the wheel off the pop up so we could just bring it to the tire shop ourselves. Greg was able to get it off in relatively short order, which was very frustrating to him that he didn’t just do that before we waited 2 hours for a non-existent tow truck.

Wheel in hand we drove 20 minutes to Deer Lodge Les Schwab Tire Company and finally met Bo who I had talked to multiple times on the phone about the situation and who had reassured us that he had all the parts. Bo and his crew were exceptional. They got us our new parts promptly and sent us back on our way. Greg installed the wheel back on the pop up but felt like he heard some grinding in one of the wheel bearings and was worried it had gotten damaged the shaking of the loose tire. So we drove exceedingly slow and cautiously on back roads back to Deer Lodge and Les Schwab to have them take a look at the wheel bearings. They gave it the once over and felt like it was probably just some dirt which they cleaned out and gave us the stamp of approval. No new wheel bearings were needed! So four hours later we got back onto the ever-loving I-90 and headed on towards Missoula.

Shout out to Nate Jones for always being on call for all car related issues!

We eventually got to Missoula, angry and hungry, around 6 pm. We grabbed Subway for dinner, filled with gas and headed to Mecca. I mean REI. Here we felt we both deserved some solid self-care in the form of new hiking shoes. Greg bought a pair of Solomon trail runners and I bought myself the Keen mid rises that just came out that I had my eye on. We were both very happy. Then headed to fill up on groceries and get back on the road close to 8 pm.

We had another 2+ hours of driving to make it up to West Glacier which is close to where we were staying. We made it without further event. We got to our campsite at Fish Creek and set up the pop-up. We drank a very hard earned beer and fell directly to sleep after a very long day, still very grateful that it went as smoothly as it did with all of our belongings and selves intact. We were also grateful that we decided to wake up at 4am, otherwise there is no way the tire shop would have been open or that we would have even made it to Glacier that day.

** Side note about another unplanned stop in Minnesota. We were again driving I-90 from Wisconsin to South Dakota back at the beginning of the trip. Greg was driving and starts to slow down, turn on the hazards, and pulls off. I’m like what are you doing, what’s wrong? Then I see that we are getting pulled over by the State Trooper. Then a tall blond lady Trooper comes up to the window and tells us that we are getting pulled over because we didn’t slow down during a work zone. She asks for license and information to run through the system, you know to look at all of Greg’s priors. Then comes back, says she couldn’t find him in the system, but we look nice, so decides to just give us a lecture about how the law states that we should slow down to a speed that we believe is appropriate based on if the crew were our family. She mommed us hard. She let us go with a warning, because we were still driving under the speed limit when we got pulled over. She was the most polite police officer, which leads me to believe that whole Minnesota/Midwest hospitality is just the cutest, don’t you know. But also this is a story about white privilege (please read the lack of fear, lack of ticket, lack of police aggression, letting us go without finding us in the system, the maternalistic lecture).**

Sunday August 6^th

We slept in, given our crazy preceding day. Then we decided to drive the Going to the Sun Road at least in partiality, because that is what you do in Glacier! We drove up to Logan Pass and headed to the visitor center. There is a little hike out in back of the visitor center so we decided to do that. It is called Hidden Lake, it’s about 2.5 miles round trip to the overlook, and about 5 miles round trip if you decide to go down to the lake.

Since we never stop half way we continued all the way to the lake. We loved the hike going down because it just had the most insane views of snow fields, alpine meadows, glacial lakes, beautiful mud rock ridgelines, luxuriating marmots, and MOUNTAIN GOATS! We met like 6 mountain goat friends on the way down, they dgaf about people and just weave in and out on the paths. Mountain goats and marmots are salt deprived so they gravitate towards people and their delicious savory sweaty skin and packs. We lunched at the lake then headed back up. Greg decided he wanted to stretch his legs so he essentially ran up the switch backs from the lake up to the path. I followed, I think I almost died.

Something you should know about me. A lot of people get Hangry, angry when they are very hungry, me not so much. I get Swangry, angry because I am so sweaty. Thanks to my genetics I sweat very easily, so I have some tolerance and expectation of sweat with exertion and outdoor activities. However, going up inclines with any speed at all causes me to sweat from every pore in my body. So you can extrapolate my emotional reaction to running up hill.

I got overheated ie very displeased, but eventually started feeling better after slowing down and more flat terrain. I didn’t feel quite myself till we got all the way back to the car. We did stop at the gift shop and purchase some long sleeve spf moisture wicking shirts and some postcards.

We have been purchasing post cards at most stops and trying to late wedding thank you notes in this manner throughout the trip. We are a little over half way through, so if you haven’t gotten yours yet, it will be on the way in the next few weeks or you are one of twenty people that decided to move between receiving saves the dates and today.

We then drove back down the Going to the Sun road back to West Glacier. Stopped at the visitor center at Apgar then called it a day and headed back to the campsite.

Glacier is a hiker’s park. There is a lifetime worth of backpacking, hiking, back country exploring to be done within the park, and we only had a few days in which to do it. We had to narrow down what we thought would be the best hikes and were most doable in the time we had. We planned to do the Loop to the Highline trail the following day, then a rest-ish day, then Wednesday Sperry Trail to Sperry Chalet, Thursday Sperry Glacier Trail, Friday maybe Lake Overlook trail to Sperry Trail again or Gunsight Pass, then Saturday Grinnell Glacier Viewpoint. We were trying to pack a lot in, but we would still be missing big parts of the park such as Two Medicine, Belly River, Goat Haunt, and the entire Canadian side in Waterton Park.

We went to bed with ambitious hopes in our hearts.

Monday August 7^th

We woke up early to get started on our trail. We decided to park at The Loop and then climb this trail to Granite Chalet, then follow it along Highline Ridge Trail back to Logan Pass where we would catch a shuttle back down to our car. It would be about a 12 mile hike, a hike for us. We opted to do it this way as opposed to from Logan Pass down to the Loop because we thought it would be easier to catch a shuttle from Logan Pass.

Glacier runs a free shuttle pass along the entirety of the Going to the Sun Road.  Except the break the road up into 3 sections so you would need to switch buses twice in order to complete the trip, one way. They have you go on a big bus from Apgar to Avalanche, then switch to small 15 passenger vans from Avalanche to Logan Pass, and a different bus from Logan Pass to Saint Mary. They use small 15 passenger vans because there are size restrictions on vehicles on the road of 21 ft max because of the tight sharp turns. The buses are scheduled to go every 30 minutes, if however they are full and several have to pass you it could take an hour to actually even get on a bus. We wanted to avoid having to wait an hour after a long hike.

We started our hike by 8 am without any problems. It was a steep initial four miles from the Loop to Granite Chalet, ascending 2200ft. We only passed a couple of people on the whole trail. At one point the weather started looking a little sketch, but seemed to pass to the southwest of us. This section of park had been burned in the last decade and so it had a lot of thick underbrush with little shade. The underbrush consisted of sage, wildflowers and tons of berries. We were walking, alone, through prime bear country. The one group we passed was even kind enough to point out that a bear had been on the trail the night before as there were some well-preserved foot prints. Grrrrreat. We always carry bear spray and so we continued along, thankfully bear free.

By the time we got to Granite Chalet I was a little swangry and ready to be done going uphill. Granite Chalet is one of two remaining chalets in the park. These were originally built 100 years ago by the railroad company to attract visitors to the park. There were originally eight chalets in the park, each a one day horse ride apart. Six of the chalets were constructed predominantly out of wood and fell into disrepair after years of disuse during the Second World War and subsequently were burned to the ground. The two remaining chalets are Sperry and Granite Chalets. You can reserve rooms at the chalets. Sperry Chalet will also include meals, Granite Chalet does not. In order to secure a reservation you have to put in your request within ten minutes of the system opening as space is very limited. Luckily I have a very dedicated husband who had done his research. He had obtained reservations for two nights at Sperry Chalet for us to enjoy during our trip. It allows you to hike in, enjoy incredibly views, eat some food, and relax without having to backpack all of your supplies up a mountain. We were scheduled to be at Sperry from Wednesday through Friday. This was one of our biggest splurges of our trip and we were very much looking forward to it.

Granite Chalet was just a nice resting point to enjoy a snack on our current hike. After a couple of minutes of rest and looking around we headed on. We expected this next portion of the hike to be relatively flat or downhill, albeit long, 7.6 miles. I was disappointed with how much uphill climbing I had to do, and how long 7.6 miles is when you are hiking on a bright sunny day. We pushed ourselves at a good pace through the hike and eventually with about 3 miles left took another break. It was at this point that I tried to remind myself that hiking should be fun, not a race, and to be more mindful and enjoy the experience not the destination. We did get some incredible views, got to see amazing parts of the park. Thankfully it was a relatively good visibility day, as smoke was still a big issue from fires in British Columbia (now much closer) and Missoula.

We eventually got to Logan Pass, caked in dirt and sweat, very ready for a break. It ended being our longest hike to date at close to 13 miles. Heads up, you don’t want to be our Fitbit friends right now, as we will crush you. This was a surprisingly crowded trail for its length. Most people seem to start and end at Logan’s Pass and just walk until they feel tired, then turn around. The rest of everyone else starts with Logan Pass and ends at the Loop as you get to descend 300ft instead of ascending 3000ft. We are not most people, and we were a little jealous. Let’s call this a training hike for bigger things to come.

We were able to catch a shuttle pretty quickly, get back to our car, and back down to the campsite. Glacier actually had a very nice camping set up. We were next to the bathrooms and there were FREE showers a couple of loops over. Today was a real shower day, and it was lovely.

Tuesday August 8^th

We planned for a much more relaxed day as we knew we had big hikes scheduled the next few days and were still feeling our hike from the prior day. We also wanted to minimize driving on the Going to the Sun Road as it had construction, was crowded, and very slow going. We just took a casual stroll, a couple of miles partially around John’s Lake Loop. Here we met a lovely mule deer friend who followed us pretty closely and allowed us to get great pictures of her. We named her Laci, as she is in Glacier. Is anyone enjoying my puns? It led us to John’s Lake and along the river which was crystal clear from the glacier run off. It was a beautiful not very crowded hike. A similar hike is Avalanche Lake, but this trail is significantly more crowded as all of the rangers and guides recommend it. Well we recommend John’s Lake instead, as we prefer solitude in which to enjoy nature. It does overlap with a common horse trail which means we had to watch where we were stepping a lot of the time.

We packed our backpacks and talked about the pros and cons of taking Gunsight Pass out of the Chalet. Gunsight Pass is a 13.6 mile hike with some elevation change to get up to the actual passes through the mountains and then back down to the lakes. To get to the chalet we had to use their free shuttle service. This allows us to park the ca, and more importantly the pop-up, at the West Glacier Outdoor Center and then get a ride to the trailhead. This shuttle service only runs to and from the Sperry Trailhead, which is the base of a 6.5 mile trail that leads up to the chalet with 3400 feet of elevation. So in order to use the transportation we would have to take the bus system back over to West Glacier then call to let them know we missed our pick up. This would involve using 3 separate buses and likely 2 hours to get back to the car, which on a day we would have to drive to a new campsite 2 hours away and set up seemed like a lot. So we decided to keep our 2pm pick up at the Sperry Trailhead for our route down.

Side note, why is our campsite, also in Glacier, 2 hours away? Because you can’t take a pop-up through the Going to The Sun Road, so you have to take the long way around the outside of the park. We didn’t know this when we booked our campsites, we were just excited to get to different campgrounds and check out new parts of the park. We were less excited about doing it in real life.

Our main task for the evening was also cleaning out the cooler so we wouldn’t have to keep ice in it while we were gone for three days up at the Chalet. We had a few beers to drink to accomplish this goal. Was probably not our brightest idea the day before a hike, c’est la vie.

Coming Up – Glacier Part 2 Chalet and St. Mary’s

Pictures coming soon!

 

 

Yellowstone

Sunday July 30^th

We started driving towards Yellowstone from Grand Teton after we finished lunch. We drove up I-85 through the John D Rockfeller Memorial Parkway up to the South Entrance. On our drive in we decided to stop at Lewis Falls and a couple of other pull offs as we knew we would not be back in this stretch of park. We drove towards our campsite at Bridge Bay. We got all checked in and the pop-up all set up. We had a great spot with some tree cover, open space, it backed up to forest, and most importantly was a shorter walk to the bathroom than at Grand Teton. 

We still had a little bit of time before it got dark so we headed to the closest attraction, West Thumb.

West Thumb is one of the smaller geyser basins, but it is immediately adjacent to Lake Yellowstone. Lake Yellowstone is a massive alpine lake in the center of the park, in fact it is the largest alpine lake in the contiguous US above 7000 ft in elevation. Because of the geyser basins and plethora of thermal features Lake Yellowstone actually stays a warmer than expected temperature year round. We got to walk around the boardwalk to see the thermal features, which allowed us to see our first few geysers and hot springs. We were little pleased when we discovered that geysers did not have the courtesy to erupt upon our arrival, and worse yet that we may have to wait years until they actually did erupt. We did enjoy when several of the smaller eruptions and the constant percolation of the springs. The thermophilic bacteria provide a stunning spectrum of color radiating along the drainage rivulets.

Once we completed that short walk our Fitbits informed us that we still should consider further walking before concluding our day.  So we started along the Yellowstone Lake Overlook, a 1.5 mile round-trip jaunt up a nearby hill to provide views of the lake and surrounding mountains. We didn’t see anyone else along the entire trail, which is always pleasant.

With that completed and our step goals accomplished, we headed back to the campsite to make some dinner, plan our coming days, and get ready for bed.

Monday July 31st

This was the day we decided to head north along the loop. We started out our day waking early with plans of a hike up Mount Washburn. We were slowed along our route by a herd of buffalo, which twofold slowed traffic secondary to both rubbernecking tourists taking pictures from the road, and buffalo who had decided the road is the most convenient path upon which to walk down. We did get to Mount Washburn a little later than expected but still before the usual onslaught of folk. This is a “strenuous” 6.0 mile round-trip hike which gains 1400 feet in elevation and ends at a look out and communications tower. We were hoping to catch a view of some mountain goats along the way however we would have to save those ambitions for Glacier. The hike was moderate, at best, cluing us into Yellowstone’s primary demographic of day hikers as a more casual tourist. The trail was wide and previously paved. We passed through several meadows with overlooks towards the canyon area and towards other mountains. The top did afford some impressive views however these were again impeded by a smoky haze from forest fires in Montana and British Columbia. The fire lookout/communications tower at the top was interested because it not only provided the only cell signal in the entire park, but also served as a full time residence for a ranger during the summer duration. We made our way back down to start some real sight-seeing.

Heading north, our first major attraction was Tower Falls, magnificent, but only able to be seen in partiality with a glancing view point. We headed down the trail there, which took us towards the Yellowstone River. This allowed us to get our feet wet, grab some pictures, then head directly back up the steep incline.

We made our turn around destination an exhibit, “Forces of the Northern Range”, which was a self-guided informational boardwalk, perhaps worth skipping on our next trip. We drove back through a one-way dirt road through the Blacktail Plateau hoping to catch some wildlife photos. We were not so lucky, but the guy in front of us was so hopeful that he found every rock worthy of further investigation to ensure it was not secretly an elk or pronghorn. I imagine he would be a great guy with whom to stare at clouds.

Our next stop was Petrified Tree, a blessedly short walk, and far enough away to not be swarmed by busloads of tourists.

Then we stopped by the Roosevelt Lodge to enjoy an ice cream and our first glimpses of the ever adorable ground squirrel.

We headed back south towards the campground. Our next major stop was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Unfortunately essentially all overlooks of the Upper Falls were blocked for construction. We were able to walk down to the brink of the Lower Falls, and then again climb up a steep incline. We were crushing our step counts. Then we got some pictures from further along the canyon from view points along the Northern and then Southern Rims. On our way to Artist’s Point we got to see our first elk of the trip, sitting alongside of the road, which was a fun surprise. Artist’s Point truly does have some of the best views in the entire park.

At this point we were quite tired and headed back to the camper, at least we attempted to. We were again waylaid by significant Buffalo Traffic. Actually in addition to Buffalo at the same point we crossed the herd we also heard of a grizzly and wolf pups across the river that were drawing their own crowds. We did not have the binoculars or the patience to try to hunt them down. After the extra hour or so of traffic we eventually made it back to the campsite.

In addition to our personally hygiene habits steadily regressing so were our eating habits. Grocery stores had become less frequent, lacking in produce, and more expensive. We enjoyed hamburger helper with a can of corn mixed in with a side of baby carrots with ranch.

It was an exceedingly long but rewarding day of sight-seeing.

Tuesday August 1^st.

Geyser Day

With the intent of missing both the Buffalo and the crowds we woke up early to head for Upper Geyser Basin, the home of Old Faithful. We were able to enjoy the basin with minimal crowds in the cool morning air which made all the mist from the thermal features even more impressive and beautiful. Our guidebooks had suggested hiking up to Observation Point for the best view of Old Faithful. Since we had arrived immediately following an eruption of Old Faithful we had approximately 90 minutes to walk around the Upper Geyser Basin before making our way up to Observation Point. Upper Geyser Basin is incredible just from the sheer volume of unique features in close proximity to each other. Here we made two discoveries, not unrelated: 1 – Robyn is convinced every unpredictable geyser is imminently about to erupt, 2 – these same geysers are not going to erupt while we are there and therefore the geysers that go off every one to five minutes bring significantly more satisfaction.

We made it up to the point with several minutes to spare. We even got to see our first marmots, up close, along the way. It was very cool to see without the crowds surrounding us from a birds eye view.

Afterwards we headed towards Solitary Geyser, then back again through Geyser Hill towards the car. At the care we grabbed our bikes to explore the rest of the basin and then up to Biscuit Basin. We got to see almost every feature in this section of the park but did make some exceptions for the sake of time.

Once we made it back to the Upper Geyser Basin we checked out the gift shop. This is the gift shop Greg was finally able to hunt down a Yellowstone shirt that was not 100% cotton, and in a miraculous event it also came in his size for a reasonable price with a choice of two cool designs! We also grabbed some groceries for the next couple of days.

Midway Geyser Basin was our next stop. The main attraction at this venue was the Grand Prismatic Spring, which was even more beautiful than I pictured.

Next up was Lower Geyser Basin/Fountain Paint Pot Trail. This held our favorite geyser display that we were able to see in the park, Fountain Geyser. It splayed water for almost 30 minutes before it wound itself down.

As we were tiring from the crowds, the heat, and all the walking our final stop of the day was the Firehole Lake Drive. This is particularly notable for Great Fountain Geyser, which per report, has an even more impressive, perhaps even Greater, display than the fountain geyser we had just witnessed. Unfortunately it still had at least 90 minutes before an eruption was about to begin, so we moved along. This has been officially added to the list of things to catch when we do come back to the park.

Back at the campsite we made a dinner of a Chipotle Macaroni Pasta Side mixed with ground beef and sautéed cauliflower which actually turned out incredibly delicious.

We got ourselves to bed because we had a big hike planned for the next day, and, well, it’s camping so you always go to bed early.

Wednesday August 2^nd

We woke up none too early to head out towards the east entrance to the park. We had Avalanche Peak in mind for the day. There was quite a bit of smoke around from nearby fires that was obscuring some views even from the ground, but we were still determined to enjoy our hike. It was a 4.6 mile roundtrip with a gain of 2000ft of elevation to summit Avalanche Peak at 10,544 ft. Other than the smoke the weather was again in our favor with pleasant temperatures, but did get a little bit nippy at the top due to the unrelenting wind. I loved the hike as it started in forest, crossed through meadow, then ended on rocky mountain top. While it had parts that were as steep as others we had gone on, this felt much better as we had some time to acclimatize to the elevation, and it was significantly shorter.

One thing you East Coast People may be unaware of is how dry the northwestern part of the country is right now. Many places have not had a significant rain in months and are in severe drought conditions. Every National Park, Forest, Recreational Land we drive through has a sign with Smokey alerting us to the fact that fire danger level is currently “Very” or “Extremely High”. We started becoming aware of this fact on top of Devil’s Tower, when we commented on the haze and the guide told us of fires in southwestern Montana. We had first noticed haze even back as far as Badlands. By the time we got to Grand Teton we learned that there were also fires in other parts of Montana and British Columbia. Many campgrounds had fire restrictions in place such as no smoking or campfires. Thankfully there were no active fires in the park while we were there, but I would say that every other day was extremely hazy, although it improved the farther East in the park you moved. We even heard rumor they were going to pump water from Yellowstone Lake to help calm nearby fires.

After our hike we had a picnic lunch aka PB&J plus Tuna Packets to augment our hiking diet of Clif Bars and Clif Blocks. Then we headed over to the Loop Road again to hit up some thermal features we had missed on our way south from the Canyon.

We had Mud Volcano and Sulphur Cauldron left to explore in that area of the park. Thankfully they are both reached from one parking area. We looked at the Sulphur Cauldron first. It was aptly named; to have left out Sulphur with a capital S would have been remiss. These were particularly pungent thermal features. Instead of being like geysers full of expectant thrills, they were putrid and horrifying roiling masses you wouldn’t wish your enemies to fall into.

The Mud Volcano area was next. This held one of my favorite features, “Dragon’s Mouth Spring” which looks and sounds exactly like a Dragon huffing inside of his lair. This made my little fantasy nerd girl heart squeal with delight. Next was Mud Volcano, a disappointingly named feature. One thing they advise visitors of consistently is that the only constant of thermal features is change. Mud Volcano, an excellent example of the evolution of features, used to be a 30ft high cone which spewed mud high enough to envelope surrounding trees however sometime in the mid-19^th century it blew out one of the sides leaving only a boiling mass of mud pot at the bottom. Overall still cool, just significantly less impressive than the name would suggest. Other features in this area were enjoyed not only by human visitors but also a couple of napping Buffalo who had strayed from the neighboring herd to catch some warmth and relaxation at the pool edges. The buffalo appeared significantly more serene than the adjacent battery-acid level acidity of the water would allow me to be has we switched positions.

With those last features checked off our list and a vague headache from the constant exposure to hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide we headed back to the campsite.

Thursday August 3^rd

Having learned from our experience in Upper Geyser Basin, that crowds are to be avoided at the expense of sleep, we woke extremely early to head towards Norris Geyser Basin. Our sacrifice was well worth it to enjoy at least half the basin in relative solitude including some exciting features like the Vixen Geyser and Minute Geyser. This basin does hold the geyser with the largest eruption in the park, Steamboat Geyser, however it is wildly unpredictable and has not erupted in years. Whomp whomp, geyser fail. Greg felt like he could easily picture this landscape on the surface of Mars as it was so alien and in stark juxtaposition to the lush pine forest covering the remaining 80% of the park.

Then we headed to finish the rest of the loop, driving down towards Madison Junction. En route, we stopped at artist’s paint pots. While an incredibly soothing feature it was hardly worth the stop, scramble for parking, and 1 mile round trip walk. Thankfully you can get a decent view of Beryl Spring and Monument Geyser from your car, and you likely will already be driving at an ideal viewing speed. We did stop at Gibbon Falls for a quick picture and found that to be an easy in and out activity.

Next we drove Firehole Canyon Drive which was well worth the extra couple of minutes for some incredible views of water falls and sheer rock faces.

Then we decided to bite the bullet, brave the construction and lengthy drive, to explore Mammoth Hot Springs. Like our friend Zach says, there are two seasons up north: winter and construction. Accordingly, most parks are undergoing some road construction and updates throughout the summer, especially this year to recover from the significant winter snow fall which led to significant spring melt and wash out. One particular stretch of construction we were informed was between Norris and Mammoth with almost 10 miles of road cut down to single lane traffic, with anticipated 30 minute delays. This was still significantly faster than Buffalo Traffic, so we prepared to hunker down. We pulled up to the construction, parked the car, got out, picnicked around the car, and pleasantly passed the mere 15 minutes until we had to get back in and start driving again.

We got to Mammoth where I made the executive decision to stop at the visitor center. This turned into an ordeal trying to find parking in the busy area. We then discovered that the visitor center offered Wifi so we trekked back to the car to get our phones. Then I trekked back to the car to get our credit cards to pay some bills, because I do need to adult from time to time.

We finally headed out to see the travertine terraces. These I remembered from my childhood trip, as I through they were quite pretty. We walked the lower then drove around the upper. Our curiosity for thermal features had been beyond satiated at this juncture, so we headed back to Fishing Bridge.

Fishing Bridge is where we could find showers, at $4 each. We had already splurged on showers once this week, but we had dinner reservations so we went all out.

We still had time to relax and enjoy a drink and reading before we headed to dinner. We had reservations at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. We knew that most of the restaurants were more casual theme-park-esque, but that this one focused on local sustainable dishes.

I cannot rave about the food enough. We started with Elk Ravioli and Lamb Sliders, both of which were individually the best dish we had in months. We debated just ordering second helpings of each, however the buffalo steak we ordered weighed on our minds as well. The steak was great, but the ravioli and sliders were just so exceptional……. I’m having a moment.

We went to bed meat drunk.

Friday August 4^th

We planned to have a relaxing day before our big travel day to Glacier. We had driven over 500 miles just sightseeing around the park, and were ready for a break. We slept in then headed out for a quick little trail just up the road. We walked up Elephant Back Trail to a pleasant overlook of Lake Yellowstone, a 3.5 mile round trip jaunt through pine forest with 800 foot climb. We were able to enjoy the overlook all to ourselves, which was a pleasant surprise.

After that we took a quick drive over to the lake itself and pulled off at a lovely point on Gull Point Drive that we had all to ourselves. There we enjoyed the sun and reading our kindles while fending off some carnivorous flies. The water temperature was still prohibitive for a long swim, but we both waded up to our knees.

With our vitamin D stores adequately filled we headed out for another little hike. We checked out Natural Bridge, which again was just around the corner. This was a one mile each way little walk to a stone arch that formed a …. Natural bridge. It was cute, however they do not permit you to walk across for safety purposes. There is one tree managing to stand proudly in regal solitude reaching his roots across to each side for stability and nourishment, quite a sight for such a humble low volume attraction.

Feeling as though we had given Yellowstone a very strong effort and hitting all of the major attractions we decided to call it and head back for some quiet relaxation and packing to prepare for the next leg of our journey.

And now a picture of our local campground Elk. 

Saturday August 5^th

Early rising, 4 am, to pack up the camper while waking all of our neighbors. Sorry neighbors!  Glacier iis up next, eventually!

Grand Teton

Thursday July 26^th

Again, as it was a driving day, we woke up early to break down the camper and get on the road. With the exception of Grand Teton we had campsite reservations for all of our destinations. Grand Teton allows very few of its hundreds of sites to be reserved online, and we were unable to get one. So this is definitely one time we wanted to arrive early as sites were first come first serve. We had decided to head towards Gros Ventre (apparently this is a French word pronounced Grow Vaunt not Gross Venture). We choose this locations as it would be closer to Grand Teton, for hiking, and to Jackson, for civilization.

We were able to secure a lovely campsite, again no hook ups, without any issues, although the campground, and all sites in the park, did fill later that day. We got our campsite all situated then headed to Jackson to do some exploring.

We checked out Snake River Brewing Company, which offered some excellent beers.

Then we headed around town to give ourselves a little walking tour. We stopped in a couple of outdoor stores to make some additional purchases such as Croakies for me, bear spray for hiking, and a bigger water filtration pouch to make water filtration less tedious.

We took an obligatory selfie with the elk antler arches in the town center. Before you get in a tizzy, know that elks drop/shed their antlers yearly and the local boy scouts go out into the fields to pick them up to be used for decoration. No elk were harmed in the making of these arches. They do have a large Elk preserve between Grand Teton and Jackson, however this is primarily their winter refuge as they stick to the higher elevations and cooler temperatures in the summer.

After our walk, we went back to the camper for dinner, planning, and sleeping.

Friday July 27^th

This was the day that we decided to do a big hike. We had chosen Amphitheater Lake, as it was desired length, 9 to 10 miles, and desired difficulty, strenuous, with the promise of pretty incredible views. We woke fairly early to get started by 7am, but it did take us a little while to get ourselves together and to make it to the trailhead, so closer to 730 start time. This trail, like many out West, ascended the whole way out, and descended continuously back. Overall the trail gained 3000ft to peak at 9700ft over the course of 4.5 miles or so, as I said, strenuous.

It traversed through mature forest, which we enjoyed while walking through very low hanging clouds/morning fog. Getting above the forest and cloud line afforded us our first sites of Grand Teton, as we would be climbing essentially half way up the mountain. After the forest it traversed across meadows overlooking lower lakes, which was incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately this was the beginning of many long switchbacks that would guide us to the top.

We like to consider ourselves to be fairly in shape, especially when it comes to activities like hiking which seem fairly straight forward. However, this hike tested us. The altitude was getting to us. We had slowly been working our way up to higher and higher base altitude for our campsites: Badlands 5000ft, Ten Sleep 6000ft, Grand Teton 6500ft, with plans for 7700ft at Yellowstone. By slowly working our way up, I mean still over the course of about a week, which is not enough time to truly acclimate. By the time we had gotten to 9000ft on this hike we were moving at a glacial pace. Every time we would stop to catch our breath it seemed like it only took a few more steps to get out of breath again. Yet we persisted. We made it to the top after about 4 hours of hiking and enjoyed some truly incredible views of two glacial lakes with the Tetons rising up behind.

We were able to take pictures, rest, and refuel with our standard hiking grub: clif bars, pop tarts, apples, trail mix. Greg took an extra little trail up higher into a notch to get better views while I continued to recover. We made our way back down the mountain in close to half the time it took to go up.

We were totally exhausted by the time we made it down and ready to relax back at the campsite. We made some dinner, drank some beer, read, and just relaxed for the rest of the night.

Saturday July 28^th

After our big hike we decided to have a more relaxed day. So we slept in and then headed to Jenny Lake. At the lake we busted out our bikes for the first time on the trip. We biked from Jenny Lake to Moose Junction, about 9 miles. They have a very nice multi-use trail along the park road, and one that parallels 191 from Moran to Jackson. It was an easy ride and we enjoyed the big downhill quite a bit, or at least I did as it was the first time I felt comfortable going very fast because it was smooth and I could see where the road stayed straight.

At the Junction we were able to check out the place we would meet the next day for our boat tour in addition to a couple of outdoor stores. We were in the market for a sun shirt. Our climbing guide had a lightweight moisture wicking sun shirt with a hoodie that had SPF 50 in it so he did not have to worry about burning or sunscreen; we were jealous. We also noted that they had a grocery store stocking up on our way out the next day.

We biked back to Jenny Lake. At this point we realized apparently we had been biking slowly downhill the whole way out as we were now biking slowly uphill, which was much less enjoyable. However the views were even better as we now had the Tetons looking out at us and not at our backs.

At Jenny Lake we decided to go for a quick hike, you know, ideally 2 miles on relatively flat ground. We just walked out until we decided to turn our stop. En route, we made the decision to go out to Moose Ponds at it sounded nice enough and per the signs was closer than the other stops. At Moose Ponds we were commenting on the poor naming as there was no moose to be seen, until other hikers drew our eyes over to a moose mom and baby. We stayed to watch for a while and were rewarded with them moving out of the brush and towards the ponds. Moose love ponds because they eat aquatic vegetation. They are also amazingly agile swimmers who can dive up to 18 ft and hold their breath for up to 1 minute! We took a slew of pictures.

We then decided to finish the Moose Pond Loop which was another couple miles but did bring us back to the car. Overall, it was a very pleasant day.

The plan for the rest of the day was hitting up necessities like showers, laundry, and the grocery store. We asked at the check in for our campground and discovered our shower options were as follows: Drive 1+ hour across the park to another campground for showers but no laundry or drive back into Jackson about 20 minutes and pay $7 each to get a shower at a rec center, then move to a laundromat a couple of miles away. As we felt $14 for showers was a little steep, I personally opted for a self-administered sponge bath out of our dishwashing tubs followed by a tub hair cleanse with use of solo cup, all classy like. It felt amazing. Then we headed into town for the laundromat and grocery which were in the same parking lot. We also decided to eat dinner out, but took our time deciding on a location.

The best part about going to a Laundromat is that they have massive washers and dryers, so we could fit all of our clothes into one massive 23 minute load for the low price of $4.25, totally worth it. So I washed and dried, Greg grocery shopped, all in the same parking lot.

At this point we were very hungry, hungry enough to make decisions. We opted for MacPhail’s, a locally owned burger and shake joint. It was an excessive amount of high caloric food, of which we relished every single bite, and everyone else took home doggy bags. Burning 3000 calories a day has its benefits.

We headed back to the camper and slept the deep sleep of well-fed individuals.

Sunday July 29th

Today we woke up relatively early, ate breakfast, and headed to Moose Junction. Our early breakfast of choice has become yogurt with granola. At Moose Junction we checked in for our scenic river cruise, which takes you down the Snake River inside the national park. Thank you Paul Koeppen for this awesome gift. We met the other family on our trip, a family of 5 with two boys and a girl all in late high school to early college. Then we set off with our guide, Scott.

It was beautiful scenery with some intermittent wildlife. We caught a Pelican and a whole family of Bald Eagles in addition to some marmots cheering us on from their rocky perches. A small group of pictures below:

We got back to our parking lot, grabbed lunch and headed on to Yellowstone.

Up Next: You guessed it, Yellowstone!

Ten Sleep, Dirtbag Paradise

Ten Sleep, WY 

Dirtbag Paradise 

Ten Sleep was a later addition to our trip itinerary. While doing some climbing at our gym, Greg struck up a conversation with one of the employees/route setters. He let Greg know about some training tips for Devil’s Tower, but also started talking about some other cool places to climb out west. One of those places was called Ten Sleep. 

We did our research. It is a town of 300 people in Central Wyoming that is adjacent to a long canyon. In this canyon over the last 20 years or so climbers have been gravitating towards the limestone walls. Thankfully, they want more people to come and enjoy this rock, so they placed bolts up the walls to make it a great sport climbing destination. We are trying to sport climb more outside, and when is the next time we plan to be in central Wyoming with all of our climbing gear? So it got added on the route between Devil’s Tower and Grand Teton. 

Monday July 24th

 We woke up lazily in Devil’s Tower, and had a casual breakfast. We slowly packed the camper. We only had to get from Eastern Wyoming to Central Wyoming, which would take approximately 4 hours. As we had just climbed the previous 2 days in a row we did not have intentions of climbing immediately upon arrival.

 We took a break for lunch in Buffalo (Wyoming), which we came to discover, is the shooting location for one of Greg’s favorite Netflix shows, Longmire. While we were there: we stopped at the local post office for stamps, we popped in the outdoor recreation store for some better headwear, in to the local Mexican restaurant for some grub, and over the grocery store for some future grub. The new hats have since come in handy as they do an excellent job of keeping the sun off a much bigger section of our heads. Don’t worry Mom; I am opting to look quite dorky for the sake of function. Also, we are ALL over our sunscreen game.

 Buffalo is the start of a scenic byway that takes you over to the parks (Teton and Yellowstone) on the western half of the state. It took us up through the mountains and over the tallest pass we would have to drive through yet at 9800 ft. 

We arrived in Ten Sleep at Leigh Creek Campground, a state run campground, along Leigh Creek at the western end of the canyon. It was our first no electric campsite, one of many to come. It also only had a vaulted toilet, no flush and no sinks. To be fair, they kept it very clean (for a permanent port-a-potty), and so the smell was tolerable. Our campsites prior to this had electric hook-ups, but no water hook-ups. Apparently campgrounds up north, to save money keeping piping from freezing in the winter, have scattered water stations composed of a water fountain/spigot and restrooms as opposed to water hook-ups at each individual site. This was not a big deal for us, as we only have a tiny sink inside the camper and use a 6 gallon bucket for our grey water. So we just used a 5 gallon jug, which we would fill once per campsite, instead of the faucet and went about our lives. 

The Badlands was the first camp ground with pay showers. They were still easy to walk to and $0.50 for the first 4 minutes, with $0.25 for each additional 2 minutes. This is where I learned that if you planned to take a 6 minute shower that you should put all 3 quarters you brought with you in at the beginning, or at least while the water was still running, otherwise you needed another $0.50 to restart the water. Not a big deal, soap is easy to towel off, and who doesn’t love leave-in conditioner. Lesson learned.

 In Ten Sleep, you had to know where to go to find a shower you could pay for. Luckily, the climbing app that we rely heavily on, The Climbing Project, had already recommended a great place for a $2.00 shower, the brewery. 

Anyway, we got the camper set up and checked out the creek we could reach less than 100 yards directly out the back of our campsite. We liked what we saw and were quite hot, so we grabbed our bathing suits, and oh so slowly got into the river. Water gets colder the farther North you go. The blazing sun made the goose bump inducing water refreshing instead of frigid. Then instead of climbing again, as at least my body was scraped and bruised from head to toe, as finesse is not my strong suit when it comes to climbing, we headed to the local brewery, Ten Sleep Brewing Company. We already knew that this would be the most climber-friendly location in town, and it would have beer. We tried their beers; overall we would recommend the Barn Beer and the Amber. We were able to pick up the local climbing guide, and actually use our cell phones. It turns out that once you get into towns of 300 people, or hell, the WHOLE STATE OF WYOMING, cell phone signal sucks. (On a much related note, I’m sorry if you have been trying to reach me for any reason at all.)

 After we were quite refreshed from our swim and our quaffs, we headed back to the camped to scrape together some dinner, figure out where to climb the next day, and head to sleep.

 Tuesday July 25th

 We woke up, ate breakfast, grabbed most of our climbing gear and headed out. I say most, because we forgot to grab our stick clip, a fancy schmancy doohickey, attached to an extendable paint pole, which allows us to “clip in” to the first bolt or two on a route to make the beginning of a route safer. This did not lead to any problems, merely annoyance. We had about a 25 minute ride and then a 25 minute walk over to the wall we wanted to check out. I picked this one because it had the most number of beginner grades, so I could start to feel comfortable outside, without a guide. Overall we got to climb some good routes. It ended up being a fairly popular wall as several other groups or couples eventually came to check it out as well. After a while limestone pockets start to tear up your skin, so we called it quits when we started to feel the burn and when it kept threatening to rain. It was a very picturesque wall. I was even willing to photograph it from the dreaded angle (beneath chin height).

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 Nothing too memorable for the rest of the night. 

Wednesday July 25th

 Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Eating wise in Ten Sleep we tried a couple more new recipes from our book including 

One pan Chicken Fajita Pasta. 

Highly recommended.

 Savory Oatmeal with bacon, cheddar, fried egg

This was a more confusing assortment of flavors. We will not be eating this again.

And Korean steak with grilled bok choy which was so delicious I forgot to take pictures.

 We picked a new, closer, climbing destination, still in this beautiful canyon. And, this time, we remembered all of our gear including our rain jackets. We climbed until noon or so. 

Then we hit up the fish hatchery, you know, because that’s what the cool kids do. Honestly it was fairly interesting seeing where they raise all the fish to stock ponds, rivers, lakes in Wyoming, particularly with cutthroat trout. 

Then we hung out at the camper for a while in the afternoon until we decided it was time for a shower. That’s right, for those keeping track, we hadn’t showered in days. Don’t worry, it’s a trend. We discovered the beauty of dry shampoo, deodorizing/cleansing wipes, and hanging out with other people who smell worse than you do. 

We grabbed beers and showers at the brewery, and touched base with a couple friends and family while we had signal. 

*insert hug, googly eyes, bursting with excitement emojis here* 

Then we headed back, ate, slept. On our way back to the camper we realized that Ten Sleep, Wyoming, aside from being the self-proclaimed premier limestone sport climbing in the Western Hemisphere, it was also the camper van capital of the United States. You see, dirtbags, aka climbers who sleep in their cars and eat ramen in order to maximize their climb to work ratio, tend to sleep in their vehicles, and Ten Sleep has a ton of roads with free parking aka “camp sites” along the side. It is Dirtbag Mecca, a lifetime of routes with free camping and a brewery. We were in excellent company. 

Pictures to be added as internet becomes reliable. 

Next stop: Grand Teton National Park

The TOWER

Saturday July 22^nd

The official 1 week mark! Whooo-hoo!

We celebrated by waking up at 345. We did this so we could pack the camper and leave the badlands by 5am as we had a very busy day planned.

We actually did follow our plan:

• Wake up
• Eat breakfast
• Pack Camper
• Say Goodbye Badlands!
• Drive 2 hours to Mount Rushmore
• Say hello to Mount Rushmore for about 1 hour
• Say Goodbye Mount Rushmore
• Drive about 15 minutes to Custer State Park
• Meet our climbing guide then go climbing all day!
• Say Goodbye Custer State Park and South Dakota
• Say Hello Wyoming and Devil’s Tower
• Pop the camper
• Eat dinner
• Prep for our big day
• Go to sleep ASAP

I was pretty impressed we were able to stick to our schedule and make Mount Rushmore prior to 7am. This is an excellent time to go as you essentially have the whole place to yourself, the faces get excellent morning sun, except for Teddy as he’s more of a late riser, and you don’t have to pay for parking. The visitor center and shops are not open, but really it is pretty self-explanatory. We walked the little 0.6 mile loop from the flags down to the base and back up to viewing area. It was a nice little walk with a few informational signs along the way. We took our pictures and we left.

Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park are both located in an area of South Dakota called the Black Hills. We just discovered how gorgeous this area is, and have since made plans to go back to spend more time to explore the area. Black Hills in addition to being home to Mount Rushmore is also home to Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument as well as more protected lands, which makes for some gorgeous scenery. We did not make it to Wind Cave or Jewel Cave this time around, but will definitely make it a point on our next trip.

We headed to the Sylvan Lake area of Custer State Park which had a pristine mountain lake surrounded by miles of climbable rocks!

We met our climbing guide, Cheyenne, with Sylvan Climbing Guides, in the parking lot of Sylvan Lake. From there we were able to get any additional gear we needed, and sign our lives away. We had a very easy 10 minute walk around the back of the lake to get to the climbing area. We happened to go on a day where the local climbing community was hosting a big social event (aka extra climbing) so there were more than the usual numbers of people around, but still gave us plenty of room to do the routes we wanted to do. Over the course of the day we got introduced to crack climbing (where you stick body parts usually hands or feet into cracks to push yourself up the wall), multi-pitch climbing (walls that are too big to do all at once, taller than 175ft and usually closer to 300ft +, so you go up piece by piece), and long pitches (a climbing route that is longer than usual. For perspective, our climbing gym at home has 40 foot walls; here we climbed 175ft all in one go). I was pretty hesitant at first as climbing outside doesn’t have the same feel as climbing inside of a gym. I was able to grow more comfortable on the walls and with getting higher than usual. Greg, of course, was a calmly excited natural who was excited to push his limits and get on top of the highest walls around.

Cheyenne was incredibly helpful and well worth the money. As a climbing guide his job is to put “gear” in the wall so that he can attach the rope to it and safely move up the wall. Then ensure that we also get safely up the wall. Gear typically involves cams and nuts, which are just fancy equipment that you shove into cracks in the wall that can hold 500+lbs. We needed him to place gear as there were not just bolts, metal circles you can attach climbing equipment to, on Devil’s Tower. With a guide it is actually easier to climb up the wall for several reasons, however one of my favorites is that with him belaying us from above we could not fall any significant distance, and could start exactly where we fell, which takes a lot of the fear out of it. Once you trust your equipment and your guide all you have left is to trust yourself, your strength, and your skill.

Overall we had a really good day of climbing, and got to climb lots of interesting rocks which provided some spectacular views.

We finished around mid-afternoon so we could drive on to Devil’s Tower to be ready for the next day. We stopped for groceries along the way. We got the camper all set up and essentially decided we were too tired to function. Thankfully our campground, Devil’s Tower View, also served hot food. So we headed inside and grabbed a burger and fries. With our stomachs full, we got all of our gear ready for the next day, as it was going to be another long tiring day.

 

Sunday July 23^rd

Devil’s Tower Day!

We had been looking forward to this day for months now. We had been going to our rock climbing gym usually 3 times a week for the last couple of months to get in physical shape and get our climbing skills up.

We woke up at 255 as we were meeting at the parking lot at 330 dressed and ready to go. Again shockingly, we made it on time. We had everything we needed: helmets, head lamps, camelbaks, snacks, harnesses, climbing shoes, and camera. We set to getting to the base so we could get started. There is one main reason to get started so early, heat. Once the sun shines on the wall in the middle of summer it can get up to the mid to upper 90s which can be brutal especially if you are full on exerting yourself. The other, lesser, reason for getting started so early is to be the first group on the wall. Most of the guides essentially take the same route to the top as it is one of the easiest ways up, so guests have the highest likelihood of being successful at summiting Devil’s Tower.

We didn’t think about it, but there is quite an uphill walk to get from the parking lot to the base of the tower. Not a big deal, just a little surprising when you are half asleep and not expecting a 15 minute workout. We got to the Tower, we were, in fact, the first group to the base. So we got started.

Cheyenne would climb up first, followed by myself, and then Greg. The first one or two sections, “pitches”, required us to have our headlamps on, but by 5am the world was bright again. It took 5 very long sections to get to the top of the 550ft Tower. We made it to the top by 730am or so. We were able to catch our breath, grab a snack, and explore the summit. You could see where there were lightning strikes throughout. There was also still evidence of where a 1940s stuntman had parachuted on top of the tower, and had gotten stranded for 5 days until the country’s leading rock climbers could stage a rescue attempt all because his rope got twisted up on the way down. We could only see about 10 miles in each direction, if there had not been smoke from fires in southeastern Montana, then we also could have seen for about 30 miles in each direction.

The next step was repelling down. This was something I had learned how to do the day before and was still nervous about. Greg has been doing it for years and feels very comfortable, and is therefore able to go down much quicker than I had. It took 4 sections, again first Cheyenne followed by myself and then Greg. We were back on the ground by 10am. The other park patrons were very impressed by our feat. We took some victory photos and headed back to the cars. We said goodbye to Cheyenne and parted ways. I would recommend him to anyone looking for a climbing guide or teacher in Colorado, Black Hills or for ice climbing in Vermont. Ask me for contact information if you are interested.

We headed back to the camper, showered, and napped for a very long time. We basically just relaxed the rest of the day.

A lightning storm started rolling in that evening. Since the land was so flat we could see it slowly heading towards us from over 30 miles away. We were able to get some awesome pictures. We ended up falling asleep inside the camper before it hit us.

Next up is Ten Sleep!

Part 2, Devil’s Lake and the Badlands

Tuesday July 18^th

We woke up around 5am EST to get our butts out the door of Grandpa’s house and get down to the real honeypopping. We were on the road by 6am.

We started out heading south on the “Thruway”, which is the first part of I-90, still in New York, this part is a toll road. This is a road we have since become very familiar with as we took it all the way to South Dakota. Our goal was to limit our stops as much as possible given that it was set up to be our longest day of driving. So we packed leftover meatloaf for sandwiches to eat at a rest area. We had a bag stocked with snacks to eat along the way, granola bars, goldfish, fruit snacks, trail mix, oatmeal rounds, whatever we felt like.

No surprises, until Ohio. We get into the state and get handed a toll care. It was going to cost us $17 to drive across the states. OHIO you aren’t that special! We suck it up and pay the toll, at least it came as one lump sum all at the end, so only 2 toll plazas total. But one of them did have a cow trailer next to us, which was fun to talk to the cows.

Then we get to Indiana, at this point we are hard into farming country which is nice easy driving. They had very nice rest areas, as did Ohio. Things are looking good, except that Indiana turns into Illinois.  Illinois is currently our least favorite states. We had to detour around Chicago in the middle of the day on Tuesday because traffic was miles of that dreaded dark red Google maps uses to tell you how bad the traffic is. Then there are tolls at what feels like every 10 to 15 miles and each time the sign will be like oh $0.75 or $1.50, then we pull up they look at the trailers and it’s like $3.60 or higher. It was crazy! We spent more money on tolls than gas between Ohio and Illinois. It took what felt FOREEEEVVVVEERRRR *Sandlot voices* to get to Wisconsin.

We keep entertained on the drive with reading interesting excerpts out loud, crossword puzzles, books on tape, counting the cows, and trying to find every state license plate.

We do eventually make it to Wisconsin and we have two more hours of driving until we hit our destination at Devil’s Lake State Park. By the time we get there we have spent 14 hours in the car, but gained an hour moving to Central time so arrived around 6:30pm. We take the scenic tour around the park trying to find the campground. It has some awesome cliff walls and giant boulders that were a large part of the reason we choose it, as they were available for climbing. We get to see the lake, which is this beautiful little mountain oasis.

We made dinner, Pork sliders. At least we usually make them as pork sliders, but this time no Hawaiian rolls, just hot dog buns. So you get a marinated pork tenderloin, throw that on the grill. Get a red onion, slice it in half, throw that on the grill. Grab a can of sliced pineapple, if you are feeling frisky, throw the slices on the grill. And have a bottle of Teriyaki sauce ready to go. If the pork was not pre-marinated, definitely use Teriyaki, for 30 minutes or so. Then construct your sandwich: Hawaiian rolls sliced in half, pineapple, red onion, then sliced pork and extra Teriyaki. If you are doing sliders, eat 3!

Then we drank some New Glarus beer when it rained, thankfully after dinner, and I posted the last blog then we went to bed.

Then we work up at 1 am with the second rainstorm of the night, which lasted a good hour with lightning, thunder, downpours, the whole nine. This was the first time that we were glad to not have Mocha with us, because while she hates Thunderstorms, she hates them even more in the camper. Rain stops, and I eventually fall back asleep.

Wednesday July 19^th

Rest Day!!!

We woke up lazily then we made breakfast. Our go to breakfast, at home, is fried eggs and a banana. Most of the time while camping this gets an upgrade to fried eggs on toast smothered in syrup, with our without bacon strips torn up between the toast and eggs. It is a good source of protein, fat, and carbs to keep you feeling full for any activity.

We decided since it had rained SO much the night before any morning climbing we had planned was out of the picture as wet rock is slippery rock, and slippery rock is much less fun to try to hang your body on. So we went on a hike. We took the East Bluffs trail which allowed us to see all of the cliff climbing that we were not doing.

It also had some very nice overlooks of the Lake and surrounding area. It was about 8 miles total. Then we headed back and had some leftover pork sliders for lunch.

Then we headed to the lake for some swimming, which is code for sitting in my floatie and enjoying life. After a little floating, I was ready to Kayak.  A couple of years ago we had purchased an inflatable Kayak, Sea Eagle brand, which allowed us to bring it more easily in its large bag than having to mount a standard kayak on a roof rack. It is not the easiest to steer, but after much practice we seem to have finally figured out a system that works in order for us to go forwards. This was an exceptionally clear lake as it was formed with essentially rain water and snow melt only and is not fed by any rivers or streams.

After that the rest of the day was just relaxing and hanging out. We bought some sausage and cheese curds, and more Wisconsin beer to feel like we were getting the appropriate vibe of the place.

I recently had a friend from Wisconsin explain to me what cheese curds were and why they were so exciting. The way I understand it, cheese curds come from freshly obtained milk with the cheese layer scraped off. So it is very fresh new cheese. It tends to squeak when you eat it fresh. Essentially it is baby cheese, so every time you hear a squeak from you cheese curds, just think to yourself, that’s the cheese trying to talk to you saying “baby cheese, baby cheese” in a very high pitched voice. It was delicious, especially when it got up to room temperature, as it allowed more squeaking.

We called it a relatively early night, as we planned to get another full day of driving in the following day.

Thursday July 20^th.

We had another storm during the night, and it was still very wet, with some rain, and a lot of dripping from trees when we woke up to pack the camper. We woke at 5 am and started packing with head lamps. (Head lamps may the best thing ever invented for camping; you need to go get you one.) We tried to use some towels to dry up the canvas as much as we could. The sun started coming up and we got on our way. We had to go from Devil’s Lake to the Badlands, South Dakota. We were finally getting to our first National Park.

We drove I-90 the whole day. We stopped for lunch to eat some leftover chicken sausage with peppers and onions, we even busted out the grill at this rest stop. We drove through a lot of plains and farms. Interesting fact but boring to drive through, South Dakota is 90% ranch or farm land.

We got to the badlands with the sun still up. We stayed in the campground on NPS property. Set up the camper, and then went to go look around.

We drove to an overlook with a little 0.5 mile trail and walked around and watched the sun go down and start to really bring out the colors on the rocks.

Then we wanted to see just a little bit more so started down the road, we saw some bighorn sheep out in the field so pulled over into the next view station. We got out the camera and ran to go get a picture as we didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Well as it turns out there was no rush as the sheep were exceptionally photogenic and headed for the field directly across from us! Our curiosity was temporarily satisfied and then we went back to the camper.

We made some dinner, this time PIZZA! Our best friends got us camping cookbook which revealed to us that we can grill pizza, just make sure the toppings are all cooked first and that you are only cooking the dough and melting the cheese. We took a premade pizza crust topped it with pesto, then diced tomatoes, precooked Turkey, cooked onions, shredded Pepperjack, and crumbled goat cheese. It was delicious as it sounds, and now we look forward to trying even more of the recipes.

Then we cleaned up and it was time for bed.

Friday July 21^st

Again overnight we were confronted by a thunderstorm, except this one was a monster. On the weather map we were staring at around 2am when it rolled through we were in the purple, PURPLE! Purple apparently means very gusty winds, crazy lightning, earth shaking thunder, and a downpour with the potential for hail. It was quite the nerve wracking experience, but the pop-up held up well.

We woke up at 530 again, my favorite, so we could get in a hike before we felt like we were baking on the prairie. We headed to the trail head with the trail map firmly pressed on our brains, and we started out. We followed the only people out there up a steep hill, they turned around, but we are serious hikers, so we kept going. Until we realized this was very slippery muddy water run off path that is currently unsurpassable, and not the actual trail, just a look out point we passed several hundred yards ago, which is why the others turned around. So we very carefully, ie butt scooting, made our way back to the bottom to try again. Round 2 we made our way up the trail, we passed the only other people out there and weaved our way up the formations. We found what we thought was the three way trail head and took the right turn we had planned on. This was a very strenuous trail. Made doubly so because of the complete lack of traction on the muddy surface. Several times I had posed the question are you sure this is the trail, because I did NOT want a repeat of our first endeavor. Every time I was greeted with a yes, until we got to the top, and there was no way over, or down, or trail at all. So we busted out our phones to look at the trail map we did not bring, to discover we were supposed to be on a moderate trail cross grassy plains, which was in no way what we were on. Again we had been tricked by water runoff. I was not happy, as you will see in the picture below.

So we again carefully made our way back to what we were absolutely sure was the trail, and fifty feet to the left was an easy crest with very obvious trail markers, the actual three point, well-demarcated, trail head. We finally found our way to the actual trail and started out although still on predominantly muddy footing. Mud although annoying to walk on does allow you to know what wildlife is around. We saw coyote foot prints, deer and pronghorn prints, and badger prints. We saw some deer, interesting birds, and even a little frog. We finished the first half and explore the scenic overlooks, and to avoid the high UV of the early afternoon started back fairly immediately. We finished by noon or so on our 9.5 mile, should have been 8.5 mile, trail.

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We got back to the camper and had lunch and changed. Then got back into the car do drive the Badlands loop and the Sage Creek Rim Road (this is unpaved road that usually has more wildlife, and we were determined to find some of the buffalo that live in the park.) We stopped at several overlooks, the best of which is the Pinnacles overlook.

Then we did go on the Sage Creek Rim Road but were overall disappointed with the lack of buffalo that were near enough to see well. Until we exited the park, at the exit gates was a herd of buffalo right in the road! We were very excited and took a ton of pictures.

Then we went into Wall South Dakota, and Wall Drug. We enjoyed our free ice water and 5 cent coffee that we had seen advertised for the preceding 500 miles of our journey. We also had some well-deserved ice cream. Then we headed back to the campground, made dinner, packed everything we could to prepare for another early morning and long day, and prayed for one night of storm free sleep.

Up Next: Rock Climbing and Devil’s Tower!

Part 1

As silly as it is, I am deeply contented to be sitting through a rain storm in my camper in Devil’s Lake Wisconsin. I’ll tell you how I ended up here.
Saturday July 15^th

Everything was ready to go. We had handed off my cat, Mr. Fluffernutter, about a month prior, to my parents. Greg had officially quit his job, with a light heart, and on good terms! I finished by final sports medicine certification exam. I finished as much of my orientation for the new job as I could, for it being 3 months early. We had the house and utilities all prepared. We had our last dinner with our best friends, Lauren and Lee. (BIG, HUGE, MASSIVE, shout out to them, for being the most wonderful and helpful people ever! XOXO) They left with our dog and my car around 10pm Friday night. The camper was packed and tethered to the care. The car was packed, washed, gassed up, oil changed, tires rotated, and rearing to go. We even cancelled our Netflix.

We woke up at 5am Saturday morning so we could hit the road as soon as we could. 

One of us was more ready than the other. 

Overall, it was a smooth, relatively unremarkable day of driving. Beautiful roads up through the Appalachians. 

 We switched off drivers at the end of every tank of gas. We took frequent restroom breaks where we would sneak in a walk. We stopped for a quick bite at Moe’s. We even stopped in Erie PA for a beer break at the BrewErie, per the recommendation of friends who had lived there. Its an old train station. 

We sailed from Charlotte to Buffalo without a hitch.

We arrive in Hamburg, a suburb of Buffalo, around 7pm. Our arrival was much anticipated by my grandfather with whom we were staying. I was able to introduce Greg to Grandpa, and it went well overall. Grandpa was impressed by Greg’s ability to reverse the camper in the driveway, and his thoughtfulness to have such sturdy tires on the camper. Luckily, my dad had really talked Greg up before we came, so Grandpa was prepared to meet “just a regular guy”. This is high praise from Robert Monckton. We grabbed some food, then enjoyed each other’s company and turned in for an early evening.

Sunday July 16^th

We slept in. We ate breakfast. We hung out with Grandpa. We went out to grab lunch and a beer downtown. My cousin, Sean, made some excellent recommendations, and we got to enjoy seeing the area.

We came back to the house to pick up Grandpa to take him over to my Uncle Brian’s house to enjoy a nice family dinner. In a fortuitous turn of events my parents were in town for my mom’s 40^th high school reunion so they also were at dinner. It was exceptionally nice, and we enjoyed being able to see Brian’s (my uncle’s) and his neighbor, Jessica’s (my cousin’s) houses.

___ Insert picture that was never taken here______

We returned back to Grandpa’s house, so he could be home by 8 o clock, so he wouldn’t miss his 9 pm bedtime. Wouldn’t you know, we got him so riled up, that he stayed up talking past 10 pm! For the second night in a row!

Needless to say, he slept soundly.

Monday July 17^th

We again did not hurry out of bed, as it was only day 3 of vacation. We grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to Niagara Falls. I had not been in several years, and it would be Greg’s first time. We parked on Goat Island, and made a full loop of the park. Niagara Falls is New York’s oldest state park, and is older than the National Park System! We stayed on the American side of the falls, but we did hop a ride on the classic Maid of the Mist in order to catch the best view of the falls. We took a lot of pictures. Here are just a few rough pictures from the phones.

We headed back to the house and then enjoyed the evening with my parents and Grandpa. The day before Grandpa had mentioned that he had not had a pie in quite some time, and since my grandmother passed away several years ago, he had no one to make it for him. So I made him a cherry pie. This may ultimately be my crowning achievement of the next 3 months, but we will have to wait and see. It turned out exceptionally delicious. Fresh cherries, homemade crust, homemade whipped cream. Delicious! He even complimented it, and probable thinks it was more thoughtful than making him the first stop on my honeymoon!

Then we said goodbye to my parents and headed out to Buffalo to meet Sean and Anjee for a quick beer at another brewery. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we love craft beer. We enjoy eating local food and drinking local beer, so be prepared to see a lot of pictures of food and beer. I loved talking with Sean and Anjee. I am only beginning to discover how much we have in common! They recently finished a hiking and beer oriented honeymoon of their own. 

We hit up Wegman’s on the way home, to stock up for the next couple of days of camping.  Wegman’s is a grocery store. However, I feel like that might not be an expansive enough term. Wegman’s is THE grocery store. One grocery store to rule them all… Or something like that. Anyway, it’s amazing. They have a way too many tempting foods for it to be next to my house. My Grandpa feels about Wegman’s the way we feel about the US National Whitewater Center. We love it, think it is the best tourist attraction around, want to take all of or friends to it, and feel like we can have a meaningful conversation with anyone there. They are locally owned and operated in upstate NY, and if you do quick research, like we did in the parking lot on our way out, seem to be an exceptional company. They have a ton of hot food, prepared meals, and everything you can think of.

They have even have a charcuterie station. I mean separate from their deli counter, which is separate from their sandwich counter.  I don’t know how many of you know Greg well, but he doesn’t have much a sweet tooth. It’s more of a meat tooth. His ideal dessert is meat. What I am saying is that he is a carnivore to the core. He particularly loves French food for the reason that he can have three courses of meat judgement free.

We were impressed, and definitely tempted to buy a lot of food that we didn’t need. We restrained ourselves and bought some of our usual camping go to meals, which I’ll tell you about later.

We got back to the house, tied up the camper, and headed to bed.

Tuesday July 18^th

Again we woke up at 5am to get in a full day of driving. We had to make it from Buffalo to Devil’s Lake Wisconsin. This was 723 miles, and close to 14 hours in the car including stops. It was a very long day of driving. 

I’ll tell you more about it later, and add some sweet pictures.

So at this moment I am just glad to be in the camper, listening to the rain, about ready to snuggle up in bed.

Preparation

Hello Everyone!

For those of you who do not know me or do not know what honey popping is about, please allow me explain.

My name is Robyn Monckton Koeppen. I recently married Greg Koeppen, 3 months ago. He is the love of my life, and my partner for all of life’s amazing adventures.

We did not go on a honeymoon immediately, because we had an exceptional replacement in the works. When brainstorming honeymoon ideas, we decided to wait until after I graduated from my fellowship to go on a honeymoon. This meant waiting about three months after the wedding but would allow us more freedom in our destination. We were debating Costa Rica for a while, and getting pretty excited about it, however it didn’t quite feel right. Then we looked down at our sweet dog, Mocha.

 We wished we could take her camping and have her experience all the national parks the way we planned to do when we retired. But we knew, unfortunately, that she won’t live forever; so if we wanted to show her the world we would have to get started. This inspired us to consider camping as a honeymoon option. Then we considered, what if we took longer than 2 weeks, what if we took 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, or even 10 weeks…

Obviously once we thought about going on a 10 week honeymoon, we were sold! Overall it would cost about the same as a 2 week luxury honeymoon (minus the lack of income) and we would never get the opportunity to anything like this in the near future. So I found a job after graduation that would let me start October 1st and we started planning.

We started looking into a route that would take us to all of the places we were most excited to visit: Yellowstone, Glacier, Crater Lake, Yosemite, Zion Canyon. Then we started filling in the rest.

It will be a whirlwind honeymoon/vacation/trip of a lifetime/National Park epic tour. We start by visiting family and end with visiting friends, with lots of state parks, national parks, state forests, national forests in between. We have a total of 23 stops planned, so far.

We are currently in the process of preparing the camper, and packing our life into a 12 ft box. It is crunch time! Only 4 days left.

We will be traveling with Greg’s 4 Runner and a 2001 Rockwood Premier Pop-up Trailer.

 

We bought the camper about 4 years ago so Greg and his friends could use it on a 2 week road trip (RTA as they call it). We have enjoyed using it over the years, but have never spent more than a week in it together. So we are looking forward to this trip with excitement and a little bit of nervousness.

In order to make everything go as smoothly as possible we have had to make some adjustments and upgrades to our camper.

#1 – Solar panels: Greg already installed the solar panels which we tested out a couple of weeks ago. Solar panels were a necessity because many parks we are visiting do not have electric hook ups. We refuse to use a generator as it is essentially the antithesis of enjoying nature to pour gasoline into a generator making horrific noise so we can enjoy air conditioning inside of a camper. So we have solar panels; 3 cheers for renewable (and quiet) energy! The panels are connected to a battery which stores the energy. This then goes an inverter to change it into current we can use with the normal plugs in our camper. At least this is my understanding of it. I’m not the brains of this operation. We trialed this out while camping a couple of weeks ago, and it worked like a charm!

This particular breakfast was brought to you by the sun!

#2 – We are pulling out the mattress to make room for rock climbing gear.

#3 – We had to patch a hole in the floor leftover from the previous owners.

#4 – We removed all of the caulk, and re-caulked the whole camper. This was tedious but overall should be well worth it

#5 – We replaced all of the lights with LED bulbs. Including the outdoor light.

#6 – Greg built a new cutting/prep board. Greg loves woodworking, and is very talented at it.

 

#7 – Rebuild some damage drawers.

#8 – Install new drawers catches

#9 – Upgrade the king bed with anti-fatigue mats and a mattress pad. Thanks pinterest for that idea.

#10 – Purchase outdoor shower privacy pop-up wall for times when campground doesn’t have running water.

Now all we have to do is pack up, wrap things up at home, and we will be ready to go!

Our first stop if Buffalo NY and Niagara Falls. This is where my grandfather lives. He has never met Greg and it was important to me that he does, so he gets the coveted first stop!

Now I have to get back to studying for my CAQ exam which I take in 2 days!

Talk to you from New York.